CARSON CITY — On behalf of its client, NPRI’s Center for Justice and
Constitutional Litigation filed a Non-Opposition welcoming the Nevada
Legislature as a party in its lawsuit against the Governor’s Office of
Economic Development, the State of Nevada and GOED Executive Director
Steven Hill.
On March 24, The Nevada Legislature filed a motion to intervene in the
case, and after filing a non-opposition in the First Judicial District
Court, CJCL Director and Chief Legal Officer Joseph Becker released
the following comments:
We welcome the Legislature as a defendant in our lawsuit, which seeks
to uphold Nevada’s Constitution by stopping the government from
picking winners and losers in the economy.
For decades the Legislature acknowledged that Article 8, Sections 9
and 10, of the Nevada Constitution prohibited the state from providing
subsidies to private businesses. In recognition of the clear words of
the Constitution, the Legislature even tried three times, in 1992,
1996 and 2000, to amend the Constitution to allow subsidy schemes
similar to the Catalyst Fund.
Voters, though, overwhelmingly rejected those proposals.
We look forward to discovering why legislative officials tried three
times to amend the Constitution to allow schemes like the Catalyst
Fund, but now insist that the Catalyst Fund is constitutional despite
no change to the relevant constitutional provisions.
Article 8, Section 9, of the Nevada Constitution reads, “The State
shall not donate or loan money, or its credit, subscribe to or be,
interested in the Stock of any company, association, or corporation,
except corporations formed for educational or charitable purposes.”
CJCL filed its lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the
Catalyst Fund on Feb. 19, 2014. CJCL is representing Michael Little, a
clean-energy entrepreneur, whose competitor, SolarCity, has received a
commitment from GOED to provide it with a $1.2 million taxpayer-funded
subsidy.
“In addition to being unconstitutional, the Catalyst Fund is
fundamentally unjust, because it makes a business owner subsidize his
competition,” Becker continued. “Furthermore, history has shown that
companies receiving government handouts — like Solyndra, Abound Solar,
Fisker and ThromboVision — often fail, personally enriching the
politically connected but wasting hundreds of millions of taxpayer
dollars.”